Key governance principles underpinning urban sustainable development planning and management

Abstract

Governance is assumed to be a core challenge for urban sustainability. Rather than a sectorial topic, urban sustainability is a cross cutting concern affecting and being affected - by many different interests and strategic urban issues. For this reason, urban sustainable development is mainly about how strategic decisions are made in the city, who is involved in these decision-making processes and how accountability is rendered. In this article we propose a set of governance principles for programs on urban sustainability planning and management. They are derived from UN-HABITAT experience in building capacities in cities around the world through two specialized programmes: Localizing Agenda 21 (LA21) and Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP).